Que Será Será
Que Será Será is a third season episode of House which first aired on November 7, 2006. House deals with a mysteriously ill morbidly obese coma patient. When the patient spontaneously regains consciousness, he refuses any tests that might prove his condition is due to his weight. Meanwhile, Detective Tritter steps up the pressure on House. Recap Firefighters are removing what they believe to be a deceased morbidly obese man from an apartment building through a hole in the wall. However, despite the fact that he is cold, barely breathing and has fixed and dilated pupils, they detect flatulence and a pulse in his femoral artery. They bring the patient to Princeton-Plainsboro, where they try to determine why he is comatose. Cuddy advises the team the patient is 46 years old and weighs at least 600 pounds, but otherwise his tests are not only normal, but optimal, including his blood sugar and cholesterol. The team wonders why House is even later than usual. Of course, House is in jail waiting for bail from his arrest by Detective Tritter. Finally, Wilson shows up with the $15,000 bail. House explains the situation with Tritter to him. Meanwhile, the team reviews the test results while they wonder where House is. They rule out many possibilities. Finally House shows up and claims he got drunk. House thinks it is Pickwickian syndrome even though his blood gases are normal. House wants a better medical history, so orders the team to speak to people who know the patient. Foreman and Chase discuss the morality of being obese. Cameron talks to one of the patient's neighbors, but she doesn't know him that well. The patient works as an employment headhunter and loves to cook. Cameron asks about wild game and unpasteurized cheese. It is intimated he uses prostitutes. Tritter shows up at the hospital. He tells House he has talked to Cuddy. House points out Tritter’s nicotine gum isn't working well and predicts Tritter will go back to smoking very soon.. Tritter isn't impressed. The team rules out Pickwickian syndrome—the patient is getting worse on the treatment. Cameron points out the patient likes pianos and prostitutes, just like House. House tells them to either treat the patient or find a way to give him an MRI despite the machine's weight limit of 450 pounds. Cameron insists they give him an MRI of his head. They manage to get him on the table, which starts to strain. Cuddy finds a criminal lawyer for House. She thinks Tritter is serious about charging House with illegal possession of Vicodin. The MRI doesn't reveal anything. Cameron suggests a lumbar puncture, but the patient suddenly comes out of his coma and starts panicking. The MRI table breaks while they try to get him out of the machine. The team is still mystified about the coma and why the patient regained consciousness. Cuddy comes in furious about the broken MRI. Cameron takes the blame for breaking the machine, pointing out that House wanted to jump straight into treatment. She argues that obesity is a recognized medical disability, and refusing to treat the patient in the standard way could be cause for a discrimination lawsuit. Cuddy accepts the explanation with a hint of scepticism, but quietly exits the room. The team returns to suggesting treatments, and House decides to go with all of the suggestions, including Chase's suggestion they do nothing. Cameron and Foreman are instructed to perform tests, and House instructs Chase to sit on his ass. The patient claims to know that he doesn't have hormone, blood pressure or blood sugar problems. He insists he's fine and wants to go home despite the prior coma. House talks to Wilson about why Cameron is so sympathetic to the patient. Cameron is lying and telling off Cuddy, which is atypical. Wilson reminds House to call the lawyer Cuddy suggested. The tests on the patient come back normal. They tell House the patient wants to be discharged. House goes to see the patient and tells him it's a bad idea to go home after having a coma. He thinks the patient is hiding a condition he knows about. The patient denies holding anything back. House gets a phone call that Tritter is searching his home. Tritter comes out triumphantly with 600 capsules of Vicodin and claims House is trafficking. House points out they are all in prescription bottles. Tritter wonders if House ever forged a prescription. House orders the patient released. Cameron argues that the patient might still have a serious illness and accuses House of putting his personal problems above the patient‘s welfare. Wilson tells House that he only told Tritter he wrote House's Vicodin prescriptions. Wilson is shocked that House had a stash and once again tells him to call the lawyer. Cameron escorts the patient out of the hospital. However, as the patient rises out of his wheelchair and starts walking he collapses, breaking a glass panel on the way down. The team discusses the collapse, but Cameron admits she drugged him to keep him from being discharged. House finds out that the patient skipped breakfast and theorizes that the patient has Chagas Disease, which he may have gotten from vegetables from South America. The patient resists the test, which requires a hole being drilled in his head. Cameron warns him about the dangers of the parasite. The patient finally consents. The team proceeds to drill a hole in the patient's head, but during the procedure the patient goes loses his ability to see and panics, accusing the doctors of blinding him.. The blindness has to be the result of a problem with the patient's brain, but there is no indication of a problem there. In addition, the tests have ruled out an infection or parasite. Cameron doesn’t think it can be diabetes because of the normal blood sugar test, but House wants to do a glucose tolerance test anyway. House excuses himself to go see his lawyer. The patient resists the glucose test. He's angry about being blind and the doctors believing his illness is related to his weight. He says he’s been fat all his life with no illness and wants a diagnosis that has nothing to do with his weight. House meets with his lawyer. He tells the lawyer that Tritter is trying to get back at him. The lawyer suggests a plea bargain. House wants to go to trial. The lawyer reveals his fee. House returns and finds out that the team knows about his legal problems and that the patient doesn't have multiple sclerosis and won‘t take the glucose tolerance test. House confronts the patient again about the test. However, while he struggles with the patient, he notices the patient has clubbed fingers. The team had never touched the fingers and figured it was just fat. House orders tests for lung cancer. The tests all confirm lung cancer. Cameron breaks the news to the patient—he has small cell lung carcinoma which has metastasisized. He only has a few months to live. George notes he has never smoked and resigns himself to his fate. House discusses his plea bargain with Cameron. He then asks who in her family had a weight problem. She reminds House she likes damaged people. House guesses it was Cameron who had the weight problem, but she dodges the question. Tritter meets with Wilson, who confirms House needs the Vicodin. Tritter believes House is injured, but got addicted to the drug. Tritter points out that signatures on some of the prescriptions don't match. Wilson is quietly surprised, but says he signs his name differently sometimes. Tritter asks him to reconsider his answer, but Wilson sticks to his guns. Clinic Patient The patient complains of arm pain which only happens when he sleeps on his arm. House suggests that the patient sleeps on his other side but he says he can't. Annoyed, House suggests to amputate the arm. The patient leaves in anger as Tritter watches. Major Events * Wilson bails House out of jail. *House almost lets it slip to Cameron and Foreman that Cuddy is seeking out a sperm donor, but claims it was a joke. * Tritter raids House's apartment and discovers six-hundred Vicodin pills. * After House tells him to go sit on his ass, Chase mysteriously disappears for the rest of the episode. * Tritter comes to Wilson's hotel room, asking him to confirm that House forged his name on prescriptions, but Wilson refuses to cooperate. Trivia & Cultural References *The title of the episode is a reference to a popular song from the 1950s, the most notable recording of which is by Doris Day and was featured in the second version of Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much. This is translated in the lyrics as "What will be, will be". *Brooklyn is a borough of the City of New York. *Peyton Manning is an NFL Football player who played for the Indianapolis Colts. He was known for changing plays at the line of scrimmage. Hence Dr. House's reference "Nice audible Peyton." *It is true that for a fart to occur, gases must be trapped inside the body; typically this is done by a tightened sphincter which loosens to release the gas. But with a morbidly obese person, it would theoretically be possible for the mass of the body to create sufficient pressure to trap gases despite losing muscle tension due to death—which could be released as the body is lifted, due to forces redistributing the mass. In other words, it would be possible for a dead body to fart with a sufficiently massive body. *(You’re) Having My Baby was a #1 hit song for Paul Anka in 1974, but is now widely considered to be one of the worst popular songs of all time. *Gomer Pyle and Barney Fife are characters from The Andy Griffith Show. Gomer was a dimwitted gas station mechanic (who later got his own spin-off where he joined the U.S. Marine Corps), and Barney was Andy’s enthusiastic deputy. *Salma Hayek is a Lebanese-Mexican actress. *Shamu was a captive killer whale who performed at SeaWorld San Diego and lived there from 1965 until her death in 1971. The name has now become synonymous with killer whales. *Neanderthal is a species of human that lived about 350,000-600,000 years ago. The term has become synonymous with brutish unthinking behavior, but archeological evidence shows that Neanderthals had a complicated social system that included altruism and burial rites. *Jabba is a character from Star Wars franchise and has an obese appearance as the patient has. *During his dialogue with Cuddy, House calls Tritter "Inspector Clouseau", a famous character from Blake Edwards' farcical The Pink Panther series, noteworthly, he is an incompetent, pompous, and mostly clumsy police inspector. *This is the second episode where Chase is shown to have an unexplained, tenacious bias against obese people, the other being the season one episode, "Heavy". Zebra Factor 1/10 Even in non-smokers, lung cancer is not uncommon. It is becoming increasingly common in industrialized areas, and New Jersey would certainly qualify on that count. Cast *Hugh Laurie as Gregory House *Lisa Edelstein as Lisa Cuddy *Omar Epps as Eric Foreman *Robert Sean Leonard as James Wilson *Jennifer Morrison as Allison Cameron *Jesse Spencer as Robert Chase *David Morse as Michael Tritter *Kadeem Hardison as Howard Gemeiner *Mary Elizabeth Ellis as Sophie *Cooper Thornton as John *Stephanie Venditto as Brenda Previn *Damien Dante Wayans as Haller *Pruitt Taylor Vince as George *Denver Dowridge as Garcia *Richie Chance as Riley *Michael James Faradie as Paramedic One *Bruno Amato as Lieutenant Smith *Ryan Thomas Brockington as Rookie *Jim Vickers as Folman *Alan Frazier as Vagrant *Bobbin Bergstrom as Nurse *Pam Carpenter as Administrator Category:Episodes Category:Season 3 Category:Tritter Category:Zebra Factor 1